Delisting wolves won’t change much in the
West

When Idaho Gov. Butch Otter said last month he wanted
to bid for the first wolf tag offered to hunters in his state, it
prompted predictable righteous indignation.

Newspapers
across the nation, including the New York Times, expressed doubts
that the federal government could turn control over Idaho’s
remarkably productive wolf population to people like Otter. Wolf
lovers around the world loaded the governor’s office with
e-mails, scolding him and Idahoans for our lack of understanding of
this regal predator and its place in the ecosystem.

Idaho
has finally become a focus in the wolf debate. Ever since wolves
were reintroduced in 1995, Idaho’s place in the discussion
has been overshadowed by Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone, it
seemed to most people, was the ideal place to restore wolves after
federal government trappers, ranchers and others trapped, poisoned
and starved out the region’s original wolves in the early
20th century. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took great care
when it brought wolves to the park in 1995, since conservation
efforts there always play out on a world stage. Wolf packs brought
from Canada were kept together and placed in
“enclosures” to allow the animals to acclimate to their
new home. Meanwhile, in Idaho, the wolves were dumped out at the
end of a road on the edge of the Frank Church-River of No Return
Wilderness.

Politically, Idaho didn’t appear to be
a friendly place for wolves either. Then-Gov. Phil Batt and the
state Legislature said they wanted nothing to do with wolves. So
the federal government handed over management to the Nez Perce
Tribe, though without adequate funding.

Fortunately,
Idaho’s wolves didn’t notice their second-class status
because today, Idaho has a wolf population twice the size of
Yellowstone’s. At more than 650 animals, Idaho has more
wolves than Montana and Wyoming combined, and the state’s
wolf numbers have exceeded federal recovery goals. Most important,
Idaho’s leaders and most of the livestock community have
learned to live with the predators. They helped put together a wolf
management plan that, for all of its anti-wolf rhetoric, allows the
animals to flourish.

Yet Otter expressed his true
feelings — and the feelings of many ranchers and hunters
— when he said he wanted to manage wolves for the minimum
population goals, which would be 10 packs and a little over 100
animals. This immediately concerned wolf advocates, who foresaw a
great slaughter as soon as wolves were removed from the protection
of the Endangered Species Act.

But most wolf experts
— scientists who have studied both wolves and their prey
— doubt that such a slaughter could return even if the state
decided to sanction it. Jim Peek, University of Idaho wildlife
management professor emeritus, said hunting won’t by itself
result in a dramatic decrease in wolf numbers. The more wolves
killed, the more productive they become, as females have larger
litters and breed more often in the face of reduced numbers. Idaho
might be able to cut numbers through helicopter-gunning, but
that’s a practice that’s both expensive and unpopular.
Trapping, too, has its difficulties. It may have proved effective a
century ago, but in Quebec, Canada, for example, where officials
are trapping to reduce the population, wolves have become as wary
as coyotes.

As always, the debate will come down to
clashing values. The New York Times is sure to chastise Westerners
for not embracing federal protection of wolves at the same time the
paper is unwilling to press for reintroduction in the East, where
there remains excellent habitat. Meanwhile, many Idahoans are
similar to people in Montana and Wyoming who want wolves back on
the land. Previously, wolf opponents could count on support for
their cause from residents who never like the federal government
sticking its nose in their lives — no matter what the issue.

But here’s what I think: Once wolves are delisted
and management returned to the states, wolves will become
“our” wolves and not the federal government’s.
Politicians like Otter who target wolves will have to deal with the
potential of worldwide tourism boycotts and other sanctions, along
with the expense of a major wolf kill-off. Inevitably, politics in
the states will continue to change as places like Idaho become more
like Oregon and California. Wolves are here to stay, and they and
the wild lands they need to survive will play a larger role in the
region as subdivisions sprawl up mountain valleys and fragment
ranchlands.

Rocky Barker is a contributor to
Writers on the Range, a service of High Country
News (hcn.org). He is the environmental writer for the
Idaho Statesman in Boise and the author of
Scorched Earth: How the Fires of Yellowstone Changed
America.

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